Professor Stefan Bernhard
Professor of Sociology
University of the Federal Employment Agency (HdBA) in Mannheim, Department of Sociology and Labour Market Policy
Professional career and research topics
Stefan Bernhard studied sociology in Bamberg and Galway (Ireland) and earned his doctoral degree on European poverty and social policy at the University of Bamberg in 2009. He was awarded the dissertation prize of the German Sociological Association for this work. In 2017, Bernhard completed his cumulative habilitation with market sociological studies on solo self-employment at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU).
Since November 2022 Stefan Bernhard has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Applied Sciences of the Federal Employment Agency (HdBA) in Mannheim. Previously, he worked at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) as a research associate and headed of the working group on ‘Qualitative Methods’.
Stefan Bernhard was appointed an IAB Research Fellow.
His research focuses on language learning, networks and labor market integration of refugees, sanctions in basic income support and citizen benefit reform, discrimination in the labor market and in everyday life as well as qualitative methods and network research.
He has published his research findings in numerous renowned journals such as the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Journal of Refugee Studies, The Sociological Review and International Political Sociology.